Explanation of Early Statements
53
and they shouted, Hallelujah! Others rashly denied the light behind
them, and said that it was not God that had led them out so far. The
light behind them went out, leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and
they stumbled and got their eyes off the mark and lost sight of Jesus,
and fell off the path down into the dark and wicked world below.”
Now follows the passage said to be in the original work, but not
found in Experience and Views nor in Early Writings:
“It was just as impossible for them [those that gave up their faith
in the ‘44 movement] to get on the path again and go to the city, as all
the wicked world which God had rejected. They fell all the way along
the path one after another.”
The “Shut Door” Defined
It is claimed that these expressions prove the shut-door doctrine,
and that this is the reason of their omission in later editions. But in
fact they teach only that which has been and is still held by us as a
people, as I shall show.
[63]
For a time after the disappointment in 1844, I did hold, in common
with the advent body, that the door of mercy was then forever closed
to the world. This position was taken before my first vision was given
me. It was the light given me of God that corrected our error, and
enabled us to see the true position.
I am still a believer in the shut-door theory, but not in the sense in
which we at first employed the term or in which it is employed by my
opponents.
There was a shut door in Noah’s day. There was at that time a
withdrawal of the Spirit of God from the sinful race that perished in
the waters of the Flood. God Himself gave the shut-door message to
Noah:
“My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh:
yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (
Genesis 6:3
).
There was a shut door in the days of Abraham. Mercy ceased to
plead with the inhabitants of Sodom, and all but Lot, with his wife and
two daughters, were consumed by the fire sent down from heaven.
There was a shut door in Christ’s day. The Son of God declared to
the unbelieving Jews of that generation, “Your house is left unto you
desolate” (
Matthew 23:38
).